Venezuela under Chavez

Rite Aid action

Stars and Gears organized and carried out an action at a Rite Aid store in Oakland in support of the Rite Aid warehouse workers' new union. The company has been harassing, intimidating, illegally firing, etc. so we collected signatures on custom post cards to send to the company management. The cards said that the signatory was upset and would consider changing their shopping patterns away from the Rite Aid if the company kept strong-arming the union. We got plenty of signatures and the manager of the store got distressed and called his bosses, so it was a success in putting pressure on and raising awareness.

We'll continue to carry out actions in this campaign.

Nightcrowred's YouTube video responses

Comrade nightcrowred recently put up a video on YouTube asking left-wing people what their objections to the CPUSA are – what keeps them from joining. There were plenty of comments. I'd like to address the different concerns.

The most popular one was some version of “too friendly towards Democrats” [6]. The Democrats are a bourgeois party, and as one poster added, associating with them “strengthens the misconception that Obama is in some way Communist/Socialist” - valid points.

The Party line right now is that the most important task for political progress is to defeat the ultra-right, and to that end, promoting and working with Democrats is a legitimate tactic.

I would say that this tactic was correct when capitalism was booming and the ultra-right was at the apex of political power. Those two factors meant the most important task was to prevent their complete victory in the bourgeois arena. But now is a different story, in my opinion, mainly because of the implosion of capitalism. The Party has not adjusted, and the tailing of Obama is in my opinion at current juncture a deadly mistake – but there is a National Convention that has been called where precisely this question should occupy center stage.

Related is the criticism “they aren't really revolutionary” [3] - “a great place to find some Comrades, but I don't think you can abolish the system by using it.” Indeed it is a fundamental of Marxism that one cannot simply capture the bourgeois state and turn it to socialism. But the Party makes the point that one can only act revolutionary when the objective conditions are revolutionary. Otherwise it's just silly - like calling for workers to take the state power when they don't even want to unionize. The question is of building up forces for the revolutionary moment, and moving circumstances towards a revolutionary configuration.

Of course, it may be that the Party “falls asleep” in a long un-revolutionary period and never wakes up. It stops even working for revolution, and if one came along it might even work against it. To counter this, we should always keep our revolutionary goal explicit. The Party does not do a good enough job of this in my opinion.

On this subject and on the Democrats, the solution isn't to simply dismiss the Party. The Party has an internal democratic process. Join Stars and Gears, and you can represent your views in this process. We value left unity, we're happy to have dedicated left-wing people with some views that are not in line with the Party, just as many of us have.

The second most common concern has to do with the Party's historical take – on the legacy of the so-called communist states [1] and on the Stalin-era thuggery against Trotsky [3]. “In my perfect world, the CP would forgive Trotsky and acknowledge Stalin's error,” says one. The Party line is vague about the crimes of so-called communists like Stalin. It condemns them, but only faintly, while stressing the positive aspects of the USSR. The USSR certainly did have positive aspects, but that doesn't excuse anti-socialist criminality. The condemnation is in my opinion inadequate. I too would like the Party to more decisively condemn Stalinism and admit its own errors in that period. The Party should not fear doing so, as there are good reasons why they made those errors – mainly to do with their lack of access to information about the conditions in the USSR.

My opinion is that if you're dedicated to the truth, you should have no moral fears, and admitting past mistakes is no a big deal. The culture of whitewash or of emphasizing one truth while downplaying another in order to create a desired effect is dangerous and destructive.

As for Trotsky, I myself am an admirer. He was a great Marxist, easily outstripping the criminal Stalin. I have clashed with several Party members on this point and generally over Stalinism. I think they're wrong and not only that, their views hold back the cause of world socialism.

To conclude on this point, the view of the Party on these points is right now is intentionally vague. Members have different opinions and it's not a subject the Party wants to highlight. I, like the critiquers, think we should be more open and aggressive about the anti-socialist crimes of Stalin, and that old dinosaurs that want to support Stalin should step aside and let people who don't make apologies for mass murdering dictators lead the way to socialism. As the Party hasn't yet kicked me out for expressing this, it shows the Party is not dictatorial on the issue and there is room for dissenting opinions. I'm confident that in the end, my viewpoint will win, but reinforcements are vital to do so. So don't let this decide you against joining Stars and Gears --- rather, think of it as a motivation to join.

Another cluster of answers is around “too centralized, too dictatorial” [2] and “I don't consider myself a 'Marxist-Leninist'” [2]. In my experience, this is false. The structure of the Party is loose and you won't be dictated to – especially in a club like Stars and Gears. As for the term “Marxist-Leninist,” there is some internal dissent on this issue – some consider it outdated. I myself don't like the Stalinist association, but I do strive to follow Marx and Lenin. I don't even think of whether or not I'm a “Marxist-Leninist.” The term isn't really relevant.

One person also mentioned that the Party needs to get out there for more events. I can only agree – we try to do this as best we can here. But more members would of course mean we could do this more.

I hope this addresses your concerns and encourages you to join Stars and Gears. Now's the time for action!

-David Bester

Report to the Stars and Gears club, via our website, and what we are trying to achieve.

Health care rally in SF

Stars and Gears were out at the rally for health care in SF. We handed out materials, signed stuff, and talked with people there.

There were somewhere between 50 and 100 people, with several speakers outlining how health care reform is desperately needed.

There was a doctor who talked about difficult hospital conditions.

There was an insurance industry worker who described the "death spiral" of rising premiums - premiums are increased to raise revenue, but this eventually causes people to drop their coverage, leading to increased premiums to compensate, etc. in a degenerate cycle.

There was a cancer survivor with a health care horror story. She had been successful in the corporate world, but diagnosis with cancer led her to loss of job, hence loss of insurance, and eventually, to financial ruin. She warned: "it can happen to you."

The speakers wanted Senate Democrats to use reconciliation protocol so that their majority would tell. They recognized that a more comprehensive and aggressive health care reform would be ideal, but saw the bill in congress as an important partial victory.

At the end the crowd chanted "what do we want? health care! when do we want it? now!"

Moral responsibility for American war

Everybody knows America has been at war overseas for nearly a decade. The bodies of innocents are stacking up. But most people don't think it's their fault. They don't feel guilty the same way they would if they had just knifed those Iraqis/Afghans/Pakistanis/etc. to death.

Who's to blame then?

Political executives like Commander-in-Chief Obama, Defense Secretary Gates, etc. and military brass like Petraeus --- yes. The soldiers, pilots, and military people who carry out the orders they craft --- how not? Their fingers are on the triggers and buttons.

The military-industrial corporations, who buy politicians to ensure demand for their instruments of destruction --- undoubtedly.

Those who support the war, who agitate for war, who vote for war --- certainly. They enable the war machine. Without them wars could not be fought. These are the likes of Bill Kristol and Christopher Hitchens, and the multitudes who take their arguments to heart and come out in support of war candidates.

Now we come to trickier creatures. What about those people who say: I don't support the war. I voted against it. But we live in a democracy, and even though I don't support it, the war was legitimately democratically decided. "Don't blame me, I voted for the other guy."

These people in their own minds would never accept any responsibility for the heaps of corpses baking in the desert or strewn among boulders.

But aren't they also to blame? They accept as legitimate a democratic process that results in the slaughter of people on the other side of the planet. They uphold a money-bought democracy knee deep in blood.

Though they would never admit it, these people are also war enablers. They let fealty to our anti-democratic democracy pull them in line with perpetual war. As if our democracy, even if it weren't controlled by money, should be legitimately able to violate human rights, international law, and ultimately human life by unilateral military action!

They bear moral responsibility as well.

The only ones who are not to blame are those who reason: a system that produces such carnage so regularly is broken. I do not uphold such a system; I actively oppose it. I seek to change it or overturn it.

Only these people, who are not deceived by money-bought democracy, who are not monstrously arrogant enough to think that by right of being American they have the right to kill by bombs whoever they decide to, deserve moral absolution for the national crimes.

They say "the system that produces regular slaughter is broken" and carry that conviction into practice. If everyone who opposed the wars came to the same conclusion, the human devastation could finally come to an end.

Fremont NUMMI's big battle

I've been trying to follow the story of the NUMMI plant worker's fightback against Toyota's planned closure. An article describing it is here: http://www.peoplesworld.org/labor-campaigns-vs-nummi-closure/

Not covered in the story is the Jan 24th meeting that has been making the internet rounds - for instance, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UICPuHDD0GM

The way this meeting has been painted is union leadership betraying membership. But that's just wrong. The guy who makes the linked videos is a good guy, but he got it wrong here.

First of all, the UAW leaders have fought the plant closure from the beginning right down the line. At that moment it seemed lost and they had to try to get the best deal possible --- but since then labor has rallied to them and they've renewed the fight. Attacking them in their moment of uncertainty, that nervous moment when they look defeat straight in the face, is just cruel. It's something management would do to get a better deal on severance.

And in fact, union supporters who publish a sheet called Mother Muckraker made exactly that accusation. They noted that a blitz of anti-union agitation preceded the Jan 24 meeting, which itself was held not at the usual union meeting time, but forced in as an alternative/special meeting, with news media invited (?). They noted that the invitations to the events themselves promised a violent outcome ("the 'powder keg' is ready to ignite").

They further questioned who the white haired heckler who kept interrupting Contreras was. As far as anyone knew, he didn't even work at NUMMI. They figured he was a hired heckler. His cameraman (and why were there so many cameras?) was inciting violence, shouting "F--- him up!! F--- him up!!! Beat his a--!!!"

"Put that s--- on Youtube!!!" screams the white haired heckler. Sure enough, multiple recordings are soon up on Youtube.

As the Mother Muckraker sheet says, its an obvious set up to discredit the union as thugs, just as has been done time and time again against unions, at town hall meetings, etc. The goal is to destroy the union's solidarity, make it look bad, try to defeat their fight back, and get to give the workers as small a severance package as possible.

Nobody should fall for the staged theatrics.